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Display Edit Links Around Content and Widgets in Orchard CMS

As promised, I have been blogging about undocumented and relatively unknown changes in Orchard 1.4 after blogging about What's New in Orchard 1.4. We all know about the new Projector Module, Autoroute, and the new Orchard Fields and performance enhancements, but there are a lot of other changes in Orchard 1.4, too. First, I blogged about how DataMigration Classes in Orchard Automatically Update, which is something useful to Orchard Web Developers who develop custom Orchard Modules. Now I want to talk about the "missing" edit links around content and widgets, which is important to those administering Orchard Websites.

Content and Widget Edit Links Turned Off By Default in Orchard 1.4

In Orchard 1.4, the Orchard Development Team decided to turn off ( by default ) the Content and Widget Edit Links that make it really easy for authenticated users to edit items on an Orchard Page. You could, of course, change the Default Recipe to make those features active, but by default if you install Orchard from the WebMatrix Gallery, Application Platform Installer, or Orchard CodePlex Website, the Edit Links will not appear around content items and widgets when running the Default Recipe.

I don't have an answer for the change other than sometimes the edit links can disrupt the look of the Orchard Theme if care isn't taken to properly overlay them within the content and widgets. Having them off by default and the ability to turn them on and off at will is actually a good thing.

Content Control Wrapper and Widget Control Wrapper

If you want to turn on and off the edit links around Content Items and/or Wigets in Orchard, you do so by enabling and disabling the Content Control Wrapper and Widget Control Wrapper Features within the Modules Section of the Orchard Dashboard.

As you would expect, enabling the Content Control Wrapper in Orchard displays the Edit Link around Content Items in Orchard so authenticated users can edit those content items easily. Disabling the feature removes the edit link around content items.

Widget Control Wrapper - Edit Links Around Widgets in Orchard CMS

Enabling the Widget Control Wrapper in Orchard displays the Edit Link around Widgets in Orchard so authenticated users can edit those widgets easily. Disabling the feature removes the edit link around widgets.

David Hayden is an ASP.NET MVC and Orchard CMS Developer with 18 years experience developing ASP.NET websites and related technologies. As a 7-year Microsoft MVP, he founded the Tampa ASP.NET MVC Developer Group and Sarasota Web Developer Group which taught and promoted ASP.NET MVC web development to Microsoft .NET Developers. In addition to ASP.NET MVC, David has been developing Orchard themes, modules, widgets, and websites for two years. He's contributed bug fixes and enhancement to several versions of Orchard and has published modules in the Orchard Gallery. He attended the first Harvest Orchard Developer Conference and has created over 100 Orchard themes and 300+ Orchard modules in the past two years.

Contact Me

I build affordable and exceptional websites based on Orchard CMS. If you are interested in upgrading your existing website, creating a new website, or looking for a custom Orchard Theme or Orchard Module, please email me.